Inextricable
by georgiebunk29
Summary: When you give yourself to passion, it will light you always. A reflection on the nature of magic.


**Inextricable**

_**When you give yourself to passion, it will light you always.**_

**Inspired by a visual image: thus, hard to right. Bry came up the title. In the words of Ralph Vaughan Williams, "I don't know whether I like it, but it is what I meant".**

**Um, I think you can guess who is Rowling's.**

There is always music playing.

This evening, as she walks down the green corridor toward the open door of his room, Lilly thinks she recognises the bitter-sweet classical melody. She thinks maybe she had heard it somewhere before- in a happier place.

When she enters he is sitting up in the bed talking to a man seated in the armchair. Tousled dark hair identifies the visitor as her brother, Joshua. He must have called in on his way home from work at the restaurant.

"Ron, do you think Hermione will mind if we borrow her notes?"

Lilly sighs. He's talking to a stranger again. She leans over the bed and kisses his cheek, feeling the softness of the wrinkled skin, the delicacy of fragile bones. "Hi dad." She smiles at her brother.

"Hermione? Can we borrow your notes tonight?" His voice is stronger than his outer appearance suggests. There is a richness that lends each word weight and the trace of an accent she cannot place- as the though he were fluent in another language, long ago.

Joshua tilts one corner of his mouth in greeting. It's not quite a smile and she understands he's feeling raw: It's hardest on days when their dad doesn't even recognise them. "It's Lilly, dad. I'm Lilly." She balances on the edge of the bed, careful not to bump his legs. The doctors say he's not in much pain, but he looks so depleted, a tiny figure who hardly shapes the blankets.

"Lilly's a little baby... Will we have to make wolfsbane do you think?"

The doctors can't explain it. They think the delusions must predate the Alzheimer's but she has known him 36 years and until the illness he inhabited no world but that which she shared.

Often it seems impossible to share anything with him now.

"Have you eaten dad?" Joshua shakes his head. She looks at her father, willing him to focus on the present.

"Yes. In the great hall, before detention. Have you seen my wand? People keep moving it while I'm asleep." Lilly leans over and takes her father's "wand" from the bedside drawer where she knows the nurses keep it. When he's awake, he often likes to sit just holding it: a slight, slumped figure in a hospital bed, cradling a piece of carved twig from Joshua's yard.

There is silence for a few minutes. Her father grasps the wand and stares into the distance while she and Joshua look at each other is silent resignation. Lilly wonders what the old man sees. Or rather, what the young man in her father's body thinks of.

"Tell us about Ron and Hermione dad. You were at school together I think. Who were they?"

After a moment he looks at her, amused. His face crinkles up around his eyes- green as spring time still- as he smiles. "So curious little Lilly? Will you be a witch?" He studies her. "Perhaps. When you're older."

"I'm all grown up dad." He's not going to tell them anything. It's just another not-so-good day. She wipes away a tear. Joshua leans forward and takes her hand. The old man watches them, inscrutable.

"I love her like that you know." He is speaking to her bother.

"Like what dad?"

"Like all the magic in the world." Lilly watches him, entranced by the soft curve of his lips, the way he murmurs the words as a profound statement.

"Who dad? Me... or mum?" Sometimes he mistakes her for Amy, though her mother was a blonde to her brunette.

"Ginny of course."

Her heart constricts at his expression. "Who's Ginny dad?"

For a moment he's puzzled, examining her face, then he sighs and strokes her hair as though she were still a child. "His sister," he nods at Joshua, "Ginny Weasley...a beautiful, brave little witch."

Lilly knows her parents were married when her father was 31 but she knows little of his life before they met. She has never met his family either, though she knows he was orphaned and raised by relatives. Up until the sickness set in, Lilly thought their family had been her father's whole life. Then, he started to speak of people she had never heard of and a world of magic that he inhabits more often than this one. Lilly doesn't believe her father has special powers- hasn't since she was 9- but she knows he believes it, lives it.

Loves a witch.

"Tell us about magic dad." Why not? He doesn't want to know what her boss said today, doesn't remember her husband or children. Why not hear his tale?

"Magic?" He pauses to think, moving away from them.

"Magic is in you like air... like blood. So much a part of you that it can't be felt but you know you need it to go on living...Everything reminds you of it and everything adds to it...And it makes you thing of everything bright and brave, triumphant and tragic...And when you cast a spell right it feels like what you were born to do... like the whole world exists just for that moment...like everything holds it's breath...And every part of you is perfect and it all fits together perfectly..."

His eyes are closed and the wand tip is slightly lifted from his lap by the intensity of his grip. Lilly finds she is crying again. Joshua leans forward, fascinated.

After a moment, their father opens his eyes and looks at them. She sees- something- pass behind them. The intensity leaves his face and he smiles wanly and strokes her hair again. "Lilly? Josh? I thought for a moment- but it's just a story...did you like it? You should go and say goodnight to your mum. I'll come and tuck you in soon." Lilly laughs huskily. He has the time right at least- it's dark outside.

The lights throughout the wing suddenly go out- visiting hours are over. They are left in the glow of the lamp.

"I have to go dad. Sleep well." Joshua stands and leans over to kiss him. He hugs her. "I'll be around for lunch on saturday."

"Good." She pulls back and watches him leave. Then turns back and sits a moment, stroking the blanket over her father's leg. "Thank you daddy. It was a good story." He smiles at her, but she sees he is already lost again. She squeezes his hand as she stands. "I'll see you tomorrow."

At the door she pauses. The building is dark at this end of the wing, only the light beside the bed illuminates his features. His eyes are open but unseeing as he gestures with his wand, wasted body firmly upright in the bed, lips murmuring and chin lifted. There is such confidence in his movements and a controlled energy, an expression of deep absorption on his features. She cannot describe to herself how he looks, but she sees for a moment how he would have been if...

She smiles as she walks away, glances back only once at the end of the corridor: She can just see him still, lost in another world. The music fills the silence between them, of years and vision, gives his magic meaning inexpressible in words. Without understanding what it is trying to say she can still only hear that bitter-sweet quality, but thinks if she knew...

Oh, yes. There is power in it- enough to stir the soul to glory.


End file.
